Poison by Degrees
by zratira
Summary: Perhaps he is close to finding the meaning of life; however, he does so with a tinge of emptiness. It's a poison he's become accustomed to. Drabble.


_'Men become accustomed to poison by degrees.' - Victor Hugo_

* * *

The sky was masked with clouds that night, allowing him only the barest glimpses at the crisp stars above town. Compared to the constellations, Harmonica Town consisted only of a childish menagerie of landmarks set to mirror the ideals and emotions of it's inhabitants.

The stars were preferable to the creatures of fleeting passions.

When, however rarely, people sought him to divine their fortunes, they asked such inane questions and valued such trivial ideals that the surely even the cosmos balked at many of their requests. Amid the pollution and the slow decline of the mainland's most valued commodities, they cared more for whatever wealth or romance may be thrust upon them; it was little wonder that the goddess, in her infinite wisdom, saw the futility in singing for Castanet's inhabitants.

Few people seemed to care even as the flames in town dwindled and were too weak to produce food and heat. Water power too became all but an optimist's dream.

Yet still he would sit, and with little enthusiasm, divine through his broken words and jumbled thoughts what minor joys may be left for the people of the mainland. As backwards as it was, he was still human and though his joys were restricted to more studious expenditures, even the wizard himself needed money in order to live.

* * *

Occasionally, the odd villager will ask the Wizard's name and in exchange he will offer the same cryptic answer. It bothers him that even with his vast wisdom, he cannot provide them with the real answer.

The truth is that he often forgets his own name.

It started as a secret to prevent others from having control over him, but slowly it has started to vanish with other small parts of his identity. It's become a constant struggle to keep his own name from becoming erased so that he can claw at his slim shred of optimism that someone will mean enough to him to disclose it.

He has yet to find that person and he almost fears he never will.

Recluse leaves little room for conquests of such a nature. In some inner part of his heart he yearns for what the other villagers will undoubtedly establish within their short lives. He almost finds it funny that though he has lived and will keep on living for ages to come, there is so much fulfillment in their lives he will never experience.

Though he doesn't know it himself, he has slowly convinced himself that the meaning of life cannot possibly be tied to something so fleeting.

* * *

Once, in another life, he had friends. The Witch was one of them. In the barest hint at a memory, he can remember both her and himself listening intently to a faceless, voiceless figure.

The Wizard supposes he probably had other friends that have long since decomposed and become lost to the inevitable void where all old memories travel. His family too resides in the same tattered half-remembrance.

He had one, he knows, but he will never find them there again.

It isn't that he's lived long, the Harvest God and even the Witch have far surpassed him despite their appearances, but he has lived long enough to know better than to dwell on what once was.

Therefore, his days are consumed by researching philosophy, sciences and everything in between, while his nights belong to the starry sky. With an ever-broadening catalogue of knowledge comes the constant reminder that he is always forgetting something in its place. First, it was his family and now it is taking his ability to speak. The price of extended life, and the knowledge that comes with it, is far from cheap.

For this reason, sociability is not a field the Wizard enjoys. Fulfillment of intellectual conquests cannot coexist with love and friendship. Perhaps he is close to finding the meaning of life; however, he does so with a tinge of emptiness. It's a poison he's become accustomed to.

Sometimes, and only sometimes, he feels the loneliness clench more acutely. The villagers he once assisted in breathing life back into the barren island have grown older; many of them have children now and it is entirely possible that by the next time he notices, those children will too have formed their own families.

One brief time, after an unfortunate walk through Tam Tam Forest with the town's children hunkered behind him, he allowed himself to ponder what could have been. And to his obvious chagrin, the blow he was rewarded with was more than enough to prevent his thoughts from straying once more.

So with devout caution, he continues his research and presses on for the answers to the meaning in life.

* * *

He has suspected for the longest time that it was right in front of him. Perhaps if he was more ambitious, less reclusive, he would have remedied it long ago.

Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps...

The mark beneath his eye has begun to throb again, a dull ache to constantly remind him of all the years he's lost to something so simple. It's a less than pleasant pain to co-exist with sensation of air being slowly sucked from his lungs in anxiety.

The area has begun its slow decay once again. It's always been a vicious cycle of death and rebirth despite the intervention of the Harvest deities. People are once again leaving the island in relative droves to find more fruitful places to live and the Wizard has begun to fear that fairly soon it will only be the Witch and himself left on the island while the Harvest God slumbers and the Harvest Goddess disappears with her sprites.

In all of his numerous years of witnessing the cycle, it has never gotten to this desperate point.

The mainland has withered while the smattering of islands around it have flourished. It's surely a twisted game played by only the cruelest creatures.

Yet still he sits, though he no longer riddles the dilemmas of the present as there are precious few people left on Castanet and even fewer that are willing to buy into this side of the profession he's chosen.

He's waiting, but he isn't sure what for. Sometimes he's convinced it's the one man on the mainland that's willing to visit one such as himself and sometimes he's just as sure it isn't anything at all.

The man who visits him is young and full of ambition, so very unlike himself. Yet still they have become friends and though everything around them is falling apart, the Wizard has learned something he never thought possible. The man has enlightened him, yet he cannot even present him with his true name. It was lost long ago.

The man is truly a creature of terrible, reckless dreams out of place in such a rapidly destabilizing town; though still they converse and still they manage to fashion some semblance of normal life.

The Wizard wonders when the last time he has had someone stop by for such selfless reasons as conversation alone and in exchange for his gratitude, he imparts what he considers to be such little wisdom as he has stumbled upon in his long life.

The young man knows little about him beyond that he has lived a long time and will continue to keep living long after the youth himself has passed away. Curiosity, as insatiable as it is, also provides endless fodder for discussion.

Though the man he's spent so many countless hours with will never know it, the Wizard divulges, with some remorse, the jumble of his extended mortality and struggles.

"...The meaning of life? If you're seized by such thoughts, you won't live happily, I'm sure of it."


End file.
